Chapter 46:
History Repeated
“This is Channel 13 News, reporting on the magnitude 8 earthquake that occurred in the metro D.C. area at 7 am today. We’ve got people out in the field investigating, and we’ll hand it over to them.”
“Thank you. We’re out here on location looking at the aftermath of the quake, and while I wouldn’t say we were lucky, the damage has been a lot less than what we were expecting. Even so, people around here are worried. Will there be aftershocks? Is this another Great Shaking? We’ve heard of the other earthquakes that happened around the world at the exact time this one did. Any comments on this?”
The news channel continued its speculation as the large group of kids, Digimon and adults sat in a crowded hospital waiting room. Some people walked by and ignored the waiting group, while others stopped in their tracks long enough to stare at the Digimon and then continue on their way, their minds on more important things.
A door opened, and the group immediately raised their heads as Takashi and Nami walked in.
“How is she?” Tian asked.
“She’s finally breathing on her own again,” Takashi replied, exhausted. “The paramedics did a good job keeping her stable. And she hasn’t suffered any major injuries.”
“But she hasn’t woken up,” Nami added.
Takashi nodded. “Whatever happened to her put her in a deep coma. The doctors don’t know when she’ll wake up.”
A small whimper came from Kodamon’s direction. Everyone turned to see her sitting in a corner, looking tired and stricken.
“You guys were so stupid,” Kei murmured, “Why would you challenge Mataymon by yourselves? Of course you two would get stomped flat!”
Kodamon growled, and her paws twitched slightly.
“We wouldn’t be in this situation if you two had stayed home like the rest of us,” Kei continued, “And now Akira’s going to die, and that’s one more thing we have to worry about!”
Yuka suddenly walked up to Kei and slapped her across the face.
“Oww!” Kei shouted, putting a hand on her stinging cheek.
“Yuka, what-” Seita spoke up.
“Yuka!” Kyoko burst out.
“I’m sorry,” Yuka replied seriously to Kei, “But you need to apologize, too.”
Kei quickly mumbled a grudging apology.
“Not to me,” Yuka said, “To Akira.”
“I-” Kei started with a retort, then her face screwed up. Tears fell from her eyes. “I know that. I know it’s not her fault. It’s just-”
“You were angry and wanted someone to blame,” Terriermon spoke up.
Kei nodded and her tears flowed faster. “And now I’ve messed up. Because now Akira’s going to die and I’ll never get to tell her I’m sorry!”
She sobbed openly now. “I’ve already lost Daddy. I don’t want to lose Akira too!”
Kyoko gathered Kei into her arms. “Kei, honey, don’t say that,” she said soothingly, “Akira’s not going to die. She’ll wake up soon enough.” She looked up at Takashi and Nami for some reassurance, but got nothing but grave stares.
For a few moments, no one said anything.
“I can’t believe it’s come to this,” Nami muttered, “Akira seemed so strong at first, and then she let the darkness in her heart run wild. The only blessing is that her rampage ended before the world could be destroyed again.”
There was silence in the room for a moment. “Mom… what are you talking about?” Takashi asked in a skeptical tone.
Nami didn’t speak for a moment. Then she turned to Jun. “What did my counterpart say about the Great Shaking?
Jun’s brow furrowed in thought. “That it was her fault. That it was something the five of you did that caused the destruction. But she didn’t understand how.”
Nami nodded grimly. “You’ve now witnessed what we did, though on a smaller scale.”
“What do you mean?” Seita demanded.
“The earthquakes,” Yuka said softly.
“How is that related to Akira and Kodamon?” Tian asked, “By the looks of things, it seems like they were just fighting the Midnight Army as usual – better than usual, actually-”
“That’s the thing,” Rion interrupted, “The power radiating from that basement – from Akira and Kodamon themselves even when they were out cold – It felt wrong. It was almost like what happened when Guilmon warp-evolved to Megidramon. And then the Digital World started falling apart!”
Nami nodded. “Exactly. And it was Akira’s state of mind that caused this to happen.”
“State of mind?” Mana asked shakily.
“Self-blame. Hopelessness. Despair. Lack of trust. Any of these feelings can enhance the darkness in the heart and allow the Crest of Spirit to feed on it.” Nami looked around at the attentively-listening group, then continued.
“The Crest of Spirit is a double-edged sword. The light side, powered by positive emotions, is strong enough to eliminate the darkest shadow. The dark side, powered by negative emotions, is strong enough to destroy the world if left unchecked.
“In my day, the Crest of Spirit was split into Light and Dark halves. I got the light half, while my sister Setsuko got the dark half. And we balanced each other out, so one half did not overwhelm the other. It remained that way until 2019.
“At that point, fragments of the entity known as Apocalymon had entered the Real World and infected the CEOs of several large companies and even a few heads of state. This led to both a commercial and political arms race, and abuses of power. Before any of us knew about it, the barrier between the worlds was broken, and Digimon began to invade in droves.
“The Chosen Children – not children anymore – were caught between a world that only cared about using them to better their own interests, and Apocalymon’s vast forces. We were overwhelmed and outgunned, and soon fell into despair.
“When Setsuko and Lunamon discovered how to channel that despair into power beyond anything we ever had, I thought we had a chance. We may have been destined for destruction, but we wouldn’t fall before taking Apocalymon down with us. Unfortunately, it was the absolute wrong attitude to have.
“All five of our Digimon warp-evolved using the power channeled by the dark half of the Crest of Spirit, and it triggered a long series of earthquakes, in one place after another. The longer we fought, the more aftershocks were triggered, lasting long into the night, into the next day. When we finally defeated Apocalymon, we were left with a world destroyed beyond recognition.”
Nami was silent for a few moments, then closed her eyes. A single tear fell down her cheek.
“The immense power we used affected our Digimon to the highest degree. They died, quickly dissolving into data before we even had a chance to say goodbye. And Setsuko and Lunamon… their close connection to the darkness channeled by the Crest of Spirit killed them both.”
Nami opened her eyes, a stricken look on her face.
“And in the end, it was Apocalymon who had the last laugh. He sent one last message to us before he died, mocking us and insisting he would return. Those lines of code have haunted me to this day.”
“The Infinity Riddle?” Taira asked, “But Akira solved it!”
“As I hoped she would. But I don’t like how we had to trade her safety for it.” She looked over to Kodamon, sitting alone in despair. “We’ll need all of the Chosen Children to defeat Mataymon, and if Akira doesn’t wake up…”
“We’ll just have to make do with what we have,” Souichi put in. Takashi opened his mouth to say something, but Souichi interrupted. “Look, we have the map the Infinity Riddle unlocked. And we have Tao-rin’s satellite data. We know where the enemy will strike. What more do we need?”
“There’s still a lot we don’t know,” Takashi replied. “There’s more to the Infinity Riddle than just the map. How did Akira know when the Apocalymon copies would appear at the school? What was in that basement? And whatever was in there, how is it connected to Mataymon’s plan? Thinking about it, what even is his plan?”
Souichi made a face. “Destroying the world, of course!”
“If only we knew what was going through Akira’s mind when she was in that basement.”
“Kodamon-”
“Kodamon doesn’t know either. She said Akira was unusually cryptic the entire time.”
“Damn it!” Souichi hung his head.
Lost in thought, Jun pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket. Written on the scrap were the lines and codes of the Infinity Riddle, which Akira gave him before they returned to the Real World. He stared at it for a few moments, then turned to Nami.
“Can I see your laptop, Ms. Nami?” Jun asked.
Nami looked back at him, surprised, and nodded, pulling it out of her bag and handing it over to him.
Jun opened it up, and it awoke from sleep mode to show the map with the location dots spiraling out.
“What are you going to do?” Mana asked.
“I’m going to see if I can figure out what Akira found,” Jun answered. He looked around the screen, and noticed a text file minimized in the corner. “What’s this?” He clicked on the file, maximizing it. Reading the file, his eyes widened.
“What is it?” Patamon asked.
“It looks like gibberish, but I think they’re notes,” Jun replied, “I think Akira left us some clues!” He looked over at Ryou and Takashi. “We need to go back to the ITI labs,” he said, “I think we’ll need more computing power to figure this out!”
“Count me in!” Yuu piped up, “I love a good puzzle!”
“Let’s go,” Seita added, “We need to do something beside sit here and worry!” The thought of Akira lying in a hospital bed came to him, unbidden, and he angrily pushed it away.
Takashi sighed. “All right. We’ll need to see if the building’s still safe after the earthquake, though…”
“The kids are right,” Souichi said, thumping him on the shoulder. “We need to do something, and checking out the ITI building’s as good an idea as any!”
“I’m going home,” Kyoko said, “I can’t take much more of this.” She got up and walked off, pulling Kei and Terriermon along with her. They didn’t say anything to stop her.
Cai-lin stared at Kyoko’s retreating form, and turned to Nami. “If you and your people need help, I can assist. I can’t just sit here doing nothing!”
Nami nodded. “Anything you can do, it’s much appreciated.”
Everyone got up and left the waiting room, focused on the tasks ahead.
Kodamon, however, lingered behind, feeling lost and useless without Akira by her side. Yuka and Lopmon stopped and approached her, Yuka taking her by the paw.
“Come on, Kodamon,” Yuka said gently, “Please don’t worry. Akira will be okay.”
“You think so?” Kodamon asked sadly.
Yuka nodded. “I know so.”
“Cheer up,” Lopmon added, “Akira wouldn’t want you to be sad.”
Kodamon nodded. “I’ll work hard for her, until she wakes up!” She followed everyone out, feeling a little better.
It took some time to convince the security guards and the contractors at the still-destroyed ITI building to let them set up shop, but before the day was over, the kids and their Digimon partners finally had a working command center. In addition to Jun’s laptop and Nami and company’s ragtag equipment, the group also had the supercomputers of ITI’s R&D labs at their disposal.
“It’s about time we got a consistent connection,” Naoko said tersely, communicating through one of the supercomputers. “I hate being left out of the loop!”
Naoko was silent as Nami updated her on what had happened at the school. “Damn it,” she cursed, “Even after all the advice I gave her, Akira still ends up overreaching herself!”
“We may both be to blame,” Nami answered, “We should have seen it coming...”
Meanwhile, Jun carefully placed Nami’s ancient laptop on a worktable and opened it. As the screen came to life, returning the apps to where they left off, Jun pulled up the notepad file again, and everyone crowded around the laptop to look.
Infinity
Aleph – Infinite numbers
Fibonacci Sequence – Countdown – 6:06 AM
Alpha and Omega – Beginning and End – Birth and Death
Double Helix (x2) – Nucleotides – DNA
Amino acids – Arginine – Protein – Life
Theta – Death (?)
Viruses (?) causing death?
Digital viruses (?)
Dark Seeds
“It seems like a lot of grasping at straws,” Souichi said, with a confused expression. “Going from infinity to DNA to death.”
“The thought process kind of makes sense,” Taira added, “From a scientific standpoint, anyway.”
“What do we know about Dark Seeds?” Takashi asked.
“They cause a serious illness in anyone that’s infected with one,” Jun said, “They also change the person’s personality, and makes them think evil thoughts all the time.”
“So they’re like a disease carrier,” Takashi said thoughtfully.
“And seeing what Akira wrote here about digital viruses…” Tian said, “she might have meant viruses of the medical kind, and not the software kind!”
Jun moved his attention away from the notepad file and toward the unlocked map. “This database is laid out just like the one we unlocked in the Digital World,” he remarked, “It might even be the same one.” He looked at a row of icons on the side, seeing familiar information. “There’s the Digivices and Crests, and the Digimon Analyzer, and… wait a minute!”
He moved the mouse cursor to a shadowed space at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. “There’s something else here.” He clicked on it, and was immediately met with a dialog box.
Password?
Jun leaned back in his chair for a moment, thinking. He looked back at the beginning and the end of the Infinity Riddle, then nodded. “I’m going to take a guess,” he said, “and hopefully it’ll work.”
He typed in the number 4.
Password Accepted.
Yuu looked at him in surprise. “Nice one,” he said.
The laptop screen flickered, showing a black-and-white schematic of a complex molecule.
“This molecule…” Taira said, looking at the schematic, “It’s a deadly poison!”
“Poison?” Tian asked.
Taira nodded. “Fatal to roughly 99% of the world’s population.”
She fell silent as the schematic suddenly moved, as if in a simulation, shrinking the molecule down to the size of a Dark Seed. The Seed multiplied itself several times over, and the resulting Seeds were placed inside a polyhedron. A countdown clock appeared, and as the time expired, the polyhedron opened, spraying the Dark Seeds outward.
The map appeared again, with its location points spiraling outward, and polyhedrons appeared at each point. The countdown clock appeared again, and as the time expired, every polyhedron opened, releasing the Dark Seeds all over the world.
Everyone stared at the computer screen in shock as the simulation replayed itself, from the molecule schematic to the deadly release of the poison around the world.
“Is this it?” Mana asked shakily, “Is this Mataymon’s plan?”
“Kill off 99% of the world’s population, and rule over what’s left,” Souichi said gravely. “Can’t get much worse than that.”